Thursday, September 27, 2012

Well,
darned if they didn't try to disprove that at the "Reinventing the Toilet" fair held in Seattle as part of a challenge
issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in trying to find a toilet
design for the 2.6 billion people in the world deprived of proper sanitation
systems.The cause is wonderfully noble,
and there's real intrigue in finding a model that can be mass produced and sold
on a low-price/high-volume level to those parts of the global village that are
rubbing up against the modern world more frequently than at any point in human
history.These include the modernizing
landscapes of India, China, Myanmar, South Sudan, Indonesia, and Cambodia
(where villages that float on water are only now separating their water and septic needs ); places where public health
and safety are becoming more and more a priority to keep newfound economic
success going.The Gates issued $400,000
grants to eight universities with a strict set of standards for the contest:all designs had to be hygienic, sustainable,
carbon-neutral, generate energy, and cost 5 cents per person using it in
operations.The contest gave many
university and company-sponsored teams a chance to show off their
innovation.

Of
course, some of the PR out of this may not want to be shown, period:

That's
American Standard Brands Engineering VP James McHale smiling his brightest as
he dumps simulated (we were told) waste into a container with his company's
design for an inexpensive seal that can be attached to most latrine designs in
South Asia.It's a great example of a
widespread problem: not preparing adequately with your publicity office.

(Also, it
shows how to address the more widespread problem of poorly constructed latrines
and outhouses)

Other
designs presented were fascinating not just in their own individual properties,
but how different they are from each other.CalTech researchers designed a toilet powered by solar panels that not
only creates hydrogen and electricity in the process but also breaks down the
human waste and water into hydrogen gas as a backup power source as well.Delft University of the Netherlands designed
technology that emits microwave radiation, turning the waste into
electricity.

Even stranger was a design
from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (right) that
uses a gravity-driven biological membrane to re-capture water used in the
flushing process.Additional submissions
included a toilet from North Carolina's RTI International that uses abiomass conversion processto disinfect waste and turn it into energy,
and another "solar toilet" from the University of Colorado at Boulder
which converts solid waste into a disinfected form of biological charcoal to be
used as a fuel source.

Bill
Gates posted on his foundation's site after the contest, making a very
convincing case for the need to rethink the toilet, not just for developing societies,
but our own as well:

"When you think about it, the flush toilet is
actually a pretty outdated sanitation solution. It was certainly an important
breakthrough when it was created in 1775 by a Scottish mathematician and
watchmaker named Alexander Cummings. Over the decades, it led to a sanitary revolution that helped keep deadly
diseases like cholera at bay, saving hundreds of millions of lives.

But the fact that four of
every 10 people still don’t have access to flush toilets proves that—even today—it is a
solution too expensive for much of the world. And in an era where water is becoming
increasingly precious, flush toilets that require 10 times more water than our
daily drinking water requirement are no longer a smart or sustainable solution."

Installing
and maintaining technology like this may be a challenge for any profit-driven
endeavor.However, with urban landscapes
popping (that's "p-o-p-p-i-n-g" I wrote, there) up more and more all
over the world, this is going to be an issue that will demand modern, energy-conscious
solutions.The opportunity for remaking the
waste management infrastructure to fit the 21st century is there, it just takes
someone willing to devote the capital needed to tackle the problem on a global
scale.Or for those of you who only
think in puns: the ideas are clearly flushed out, they just need to be pushed
into the future by a manufacturer willing to wipe the slate clean.

(No, to
answer your thought as you read this, bloggers have no shame.)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The complaint rings all over the
country now from anyone driving on the roads:"where did all these bicyclists come from and why won't they
leave?"After a brief decline in
2008, bicycle sales are back with a vengeance, in no small part because of the
financial advantage one has in navigating the increasingly more robust urban
landscapes of US cities.

Portland, San Diego, San
Francisco, New York, and many other cities have begun altering their
infrastructure in an effort to accommodate the growing number of bikes on the
streets.As much as automobile owners
may hate it, any city worker will tell you it's a welcome alternative in
dealing with overpopulation on the roads.

But this newfound surge in
bicycle enthusiasm also means manufacturers have an opportunity to improve
designs to make the bike more exceptional and affordable for more buyers.As Paul Humphreys touches on in a recent article of Product Design & Development, a middle-class
earner who wants to buy a bicycle will probably have the disposable income to
purchase what he wants, but not splurge.This means he or she will be looking for something cost-efficient, while
at the same time safe and long-lasting; and certainly not something that's
going to need multiple parts replaced as the years go by.

While the industry has been
around since the 19th century, there is still, amazingly, room to improve the
quality of the bicycle so that its performance and complexity do not outgrow
the budget its owners must assumedly have.The following are three areas of innovations that can clearly be
improved upon for this burgeoning market:

#1. Make them easier to store:

Graham
Hill, founder of treehugger.com teamed up a
couple years ago with Schindelhauer
Bikesto design a very simple,
yet effective model for a "Thinbike"
that, when its pedals and handlebars are folded, pretty much disappears behind
your open door.It's a tiny and indirect
characteristic of riding but one that is crucial to be solved for the urban
owner.Space utilization drives the
purchasing power of any resident in a major US city and storing your bike
indoors without having to move around furniture or sacrifice a few belongings
will heavily influence which future designs survive and which do not.In keeping with this, the Cycloc ,
a very advanced domestic wall hanger for a bike is another design

#2.Improve night riding.

If
there's one thing that freaks me out when I drive at night, it's coming across
a bicyclist on the road ahead of me, not really as far to the right as they
could be, with one, measly, dimly lit red light taped behind the seat.And if that's enough to make me grip my wheel
tighter as I pass, I can only imagine how the bicyclist feels.A step in the right direction is a concept
bike wheeled out by Seattle-based Teague
.The Pulse , as it's called, has LED lighting embedded in the
handles and pedals, which function as signal lights (if you pause here, you can
hear auto drivers everywhere collectively throw their hands up and shout
"Finally!") to let travelers behind you know when you turn.In addition, a chemically altered paint on
the body of the bike glows in the dark, improving the overall visibility of the
rider.Aside from this design,
Boston-based Mitchell Silva created a similar concept, using the handlebars
exclusively as signal lighting sources, but making them extremely intense.This field is clearly a hotbed of
experimentation and an ideal model can still be hammered out for real-world use.

#3. Onboard entertainment.

No,
I don't want a bunch of bicyclists riding around watching blu-ray DVD's, but,
as we've learned countless times with auto drivers, if you deprive the vehicle
of any entertainment or communication accessories, people are just going to add
their own, rather crudely, and sometimes dangerously.If I had a dime for every bicycle rider I
passed with earbuds jamming their auditory canals (you know the ones you need
to hear cars passing behind you?) I'd have enough to buy a pair of wire cutters
so I could make sure they stayed home.That being said, there's no getting around music as a perfect riding
partner, and iHome has found a way around the closed off option of earbuds.Their Bike To Beach Speaker can be fitted onto any bike, and has iHome's
patented sound technology that provides a rich sound covering a wide enough
area for the rider to hear their favorite song in optimal quality.However, this is not tech that comes with the
bike, yet, and it's perfectly reasonable and feasible that bicycles of the next
decade could feature systems like this to further entice buyers.